App Store records 3bn downloads

Apple Insider reports.

ABI Research announced in a press release on Wednesday that it has estimated three billion applications have been cumulatively downloaded since the iPad first launched in 2010. The iPad represents nearly a fifth of all cumulative iOS downloads, despite the fact that it debuted nearly three years after the iPhone, and two years after the iOS App Store opened.

The market research firm believes that Android 4.0 ICS could change the environment for apps and "close up the specifications gap between tablets, such as the Amazon Kindle Fire and the iPad", Tom's Guide says.

For smartphones alone, ABI believes Android downloads will outrun iOS downloads by a wide margin within the next four years. The firm predicts Android app downloads to hit 58 billion by 2016, compared to 27 billion for Apple's iPhone.

Apple iOS app downloads and Android apps have made some pretty hefty records together as well. This Christmas season helped mobile apps, tablet apps and online Android Marketplace Apps, and Apple's App store set a record of 1.2 billion apps downloaded in the final week of 2011, Z6 Mag notes.